St Pat's come from behind twice to claim 2-2 draw in Lithuania

Stunnings goals from Conan Byrne and Ger O’Brien provided St Patrick’s with another thrilling European away day in Vilnius last night.

Liam Buckley’s Saints were never overawed by the Lithuanian league leaders despite giving away a bad early goal.

Byrne deservedly levelled matters early in the second-half in Saints’ best spell of the game.

Zalgiris responded with Luka Peric putting them back in front on 70 minutes.

But a brilliant second equaliser from right-back O’Brien, who turned 29 on Tuesday, on 83 minutes gave St Pat’s a fully merited draw.

In a dramatic finale, the floodlights went out deep in stoppage time, but the Slovenian referee blew it up seconds later.

“It finished 2-2 which is a reasonable result,” said a delighted Buckley afterwards.

“We knew it would be a tough game and I think the score reflected that. We’d prefer to have won, but it’s a reasonable result for us.

“We started slowly and played our way in to it only to give away a bad goal.

“I said to them at half-time that we need to keep better retention of the ball. We needed to keep better possession in second half and we did that.

“They then scored again against the run of play with their only chance in second half.

“It’s still only half-time. They’re good side, we’re good side. It will be a good game next week and we’re looking forward to it.

“We know it will be a difficult game. It will be tight again. But we have the advantage with two away goals, are at home and on a grass pitch.”

St Pat’s settled well on the all-weather surface, creating the first real sniff on four minutes with Zalgiris skipper Andrius Skerla having to make a timely tackle to take the ball of Christy Fagan’s toe after good approach play from Chris Forrester, John Russell and Ian Bermingham.

Zalgiris looked to have targeted Killian Brennan early on with Arturas Zulpa fouling the Saints schemer three times before finally being booked. Brendan Clarke was the first keeper to see action to comfortably thwart a Zalgiris attack on 11 minutes when Mantas Kuklys worked a one-two with Pavel Komolov to open up St. Pat’s.

The impressive Komolov then punished St. Pat’s to give Žalgiris a 22nd minute lead.

St. Pat’s switched off from Vaitotas Silenas’s quick throw on the left which put Kamil Bilinski free to pick out Komolov in the box.

And the midfielder was given too time and space to take a couple of touches before blasting to the roof of the net, with the help of a slight deflection off Kenny Browne.

That rattled Saints a little, but they soon responded and should have equalised on 33 minutes.

Fagan allowed John Russell’s diagonal ball to run through for the unmarked Byrne coming in off the right flank.

Byrne might have done a bit better than driving his shot hard and low at keeper Armantas Vitkauskas who put the ball out for a corner off his knee.

That lifted St Pat’s with skipper Conor Kenna appealing in vain for a penalty when he looked to have been pulled down by Skerla in the box as they went for a Byrne free-kick.

Enjoying a good deal of the ball in the early exchanges of the second half, St. Pat’s opened Zalgiris up six minutes in with Forrester just failing to get on the end of a superb ball from Byrne.

And it was no surprise then when St. Pat’s levelled on 55 minutes.

Kenna won a header which Greg Bolger controlled to play a sublime ball through for the run of Byrne.

And Byrne made amends for wasting his first half chance to expertly lob Vitkauskas, who’d raced off his line.

Unsettled, Zalgiris almost conceded a second six minutes later when Bolger forced a parry save at full stretch from Vitkauskas.

Forrester, with a deflected shot, and Bermingham, who fired wide, had the home defence stretched as Zalgiris were on the back foot.

But home side found a way back to regain the lead against the run of play on 70 minutes.

Clarke made a fine one-handed save from Andro Svrljuga’s header from a Kuklys cross. But Luka Peric was lurking to side foot home the loose ball.

St Pat’s didn’t lie down and hit back with a glorious second equaliser on 83 minutes.

Substitute Shane McFaul laid the ball off for the run of O’Brien who found the top corner with a rising right-foot shot on the run.